


Shadows

by Reneehart



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gin N Tonic, One Shot, Possessive Tom Riddle, Tom Riddle's Diary, diary!Tom, horcrux, post-ginny's first year, unedited we die like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-20 06:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22077505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reneehart/pseuds/Reneehart
Summary: When you find yourself wondering if your shadow has always been that large or that dangerous looking, it’s because it’s not your shadow any longer- but mine.
Relationships: Tom Riddle/Ginny Weasley, sort of implied harry potter/ ginny weasley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 42





	Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kyoki777](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyoki777/gifts).



> A while back, I attempted to do a writing challenge with Kyoki that I sadly bailed on due to medical issues. Regardless, I got a pretty solid chunk of writing done, and figured I may as well begin posting stuff. The prompt for this particular work was: “It was no small feat escaping your clutches”

It was cold.

The sort of cold that permeates you, numbs your skin and settles into your bones. Ginny’s body ached from the chill, cheeks pinched and tight and teeth chattering loudly. She reached out to wrap her arms around herself, but her limbs wouldn’t move. They were frozen to her side, elbows tucked into her ribs so tightly she could feel the sharp press with every breath.

‘Why can’t I move?’ she wondered, the thought causing a whimper to break between slightly parted lips, stomach plummeting with dread. Her flesh prickled in fear, waves of panic crashing into her like waves of the ocean, an unending torrent of water. She was knocked down and pulled over, each subsequent wave too much to combat, dragging her further down and down and down-

“Ginevra,” a disembodied voice spoke, and her eyes widened, flicking back and forth through the darkness that surrounded her. She was met with nothing but shadows and the tricks they played, the shifting and bouncing of light that she thought for a moment might be movement.

Might be him.

A shiver ran down her spine at the thought, and she willed her eyes closed. ‘This is just a nightmare,’ she muttered below her breath, a mantra that became the rope she clung to. The rope holding her sanity together.

She had worse nightmares in the past. Childish fears made real and monstrous in crooks of her sleeping mind, beasts tearing into the fabric of her dreams when she read a book too soon before bed. She had dreamt of death, of parents never coming home, brothers exploding in a haze of fireworks and dragon’s smoke. 

This was just a nightmare, she reminded herself. And there have been worse.

Fingers brushed across her shoulders, sliding through her hair. A touch that burned yet she leaned into it all the same.

“Ginevra, did you miss me?” the same voice asked, silken with false sorrow, a mockery of hope. She knew that voice, a part of her brain having been dedicated to it, devoting its synapses and neurotransmitters to him. In the same way fear was instinct when the earth shook, in the same way her instincts made her startle at anything that might be a threat. 

A breath caught in her throat, the ‘no’ she had been ready to spit out lodged firmly in her windpipe. 

A chuckle.

“What’s the matter? You’re not mad, are you?” There it was again, the placating tone that belied his cruelty, a carbon copy of kindness that was just a little too sharp to be genuine- a little too overemphasized. “Stop hiding away and look at me, Darling.”

Her eyes pinched tighter together for only a moment before a swell of bravado surged in her chest. She could look- she had to look. It was just a dream, and there was no sense in being afraid of her own mind. Nightmares were just the borrowed shadows of her reality, after all. Remnants of past frights and monsters that soured and aged in her mind, used as props in a play each night.

No matter how frightening, it could never compare to the reality. 

It, too, would have to end eventually.

She opened her eyes.

“There we are,” Tom said, leaning over her, lips pulled into a wide, brilliant smile.

She had thought him handsome, once. 

He reached out, a hand tucking her hair behind her ear. It was startlingly intimate, a caress that lingered a moment too long, knuckles dragging down her jaw. “I’ve missed you so much. Why did you leave me?” His brows furrowed, eyes softening. A crude imitation, convincing though it was.

“You hurt me,” she said, the words finally freeing themselves from her throat, clawing their way up from her belly. It felt good to say, liberating. Even if the words trembled a bit too much for her liking. 

He cocked his head to the side, making the smile appear crooked, tilting too far up one side. “Hurt you? I never hurt you. I was always there for you, listened to everything you said, calmed you when someone did hurt you. And this is how you repay me? Abandoning me here? Leaving me in this horrid place?” He gestured out, a broad, swooping gesture to the nothingness. The shadows that fell upon shadows. 

“Do you have any idea how lonely it is here? How wretched it is? You left me here to rot!” His voice increased in volume, the softness and false adoration slipping with each consonant until the words were ugly, as crooked as his smile and contorted with rage. She flinched, trying to pull away from them but frozen in place by still muscles. 

“You left me for dead, Ginny! I was your friend!”

“STOP!” she growled, animalistic and feral, teeth snapping together. “Stop! Shut up! I wasn’t your friend- you tricked me! You almost killed me!” Her voice wavered, too distracted by the hammering of her heart and the thud of her blood in her ears to bother with pretense. She was afraid and angry and wanted so desperately to wake. Up.   
“It was no small feat escaping you, but I did it! I did it without you! And you can’t trick me again!”

He blinked, grinning wide to reveal sharpened teeth, jagged like glass. Red eyes narrowed- when were they red? Had they always been such?- and he chuckled, a hand reaching out and curling around her throat. “Oh, Ginevra. You’ll never be free of me. I’m as much a part of you as the blood in your veins and the air in your lungs. Until the day you die, I’ll be there, not too far behind you. When you find yourself wondering if your shadow has always been that large or that dangerous looking, it’s because it’s not your shadow any longer- but mine.”

He squeezed, fingertips digging into the soft flesh, palm crushing the chord of her windpipe.

She gagged, her breath hitching as fire seared in her chest. Her lungs collapsed, desperate and pleading for air that would not come, white spot dotting across her vision, consuming the shadows and the crimson eyes. A pitched, frantic ringing blared in her ears, the sounding distant and muffled against the erratic pulse echoing in the curves of her skull.

She was dying.

It was so cold.

“GINNY!”

She jumped up with a shout, heartbeat racing in her chest as she blinked the sleep from her eyes, an afterimage seared into her mind that would not fade even as she was met with the familiar and comforting surroundings of her bedroom at Grimmauld Place. The light was on, a pleasant, golden glow filling the room, spilling in from the crowded hallway.

Hermione was sitting beside her, a hand on her shoulder as her mother sat on the edge of her bed, lips pulled into a frown.

“Are you okay, Gin?” a voice said between a yawn, and she turned to look at the faces filling the doorway. Fred, George, Sirius, Harry, and Ron. All dressed in their nightclothes with half-lidded eyes and sleep ruffled hair.

She swallowed, feeling all at once foolish for waking the entire household up.

“It was...just a nightmare,” she mumbled, cheeks warm. 

“About your father? I already told you he’ll be all right, dear. He’ll be back in time for Christmas,” her mother assured her, patting her legs fondly. 

She blinked slowly, nodding after a moment. 

It was better that way, keeping the truth for herself. Her family didn’t like to linger long on the subject of her first year, and she didn’t want to bring them back to it. It had taken months for them to stop handling her so delicately, as if she were a fragile thing that might shatter at any moment. 

She didn’t want Tom to have that much control over her, anyway. 

“Sorry for waking you all,” she apologized, tugging the blanket up and over her shoulders. It was a distress signal- please leave now, I’m ready to move on and forget this all happened.

“You should be. I was dreaming about Mathilda Mugwort, and she had just finished taking her top off when-”

“FRED!” Molly bellowed, rising from the bed with narrowed eyes and finger waving. But the boy in question had taken off down the hall, followed quickly by his twin and a laughing Sirius- ‘He’s a healthy boy Molly!’- and she was left behind with Hermione, Ron and Harry.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” Harry asked, his voice dubious. 

She nodded. “Yeah, fine. I just want to get back to bed now.”

“G’night then. Keep it down, alright?” Ron said, wandering back to his room. 

Harry remained standing in the door, leaning against the frame as he stared at her with an indiscernible gaze. He didn’t believe her, and she wondered briefly he had dreamt of him too. The connection that had alerted him to the attack of Mr. Weasley allowing him to see the nightmare that still burned in her brain, his words echoing in her head. 

“Do you want me to stay with you?” Hermione asked, but she shook her head. It was just a dream, after all. 

She tried to resist the urge to rub along her neck, an absurd tenderness stinging at the base of her throat.

It was just a dream.

Harry sighed, turning to leave the room. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you both in the morning.” He raised a hand, flicking the lights off as he left.

The room was shrouded in darkness, in shadows, and she whimpered, wondering how many of them he lurked behind.


End file.
